If you’ve enabled cookies on your browser, the online activity undertaken is usually sent from websites to third-party tracking websites. This creates a network of company-tracker linked list, which can be used to construct your long-term usage history. Although this is a major privacy concern by some, Collusion, an experimental Firefox add-on, lets you access this information for better and safer activity. Moreover, understanding the concept of intricate dependencies within websites has been simplified by the user-friendly animated layout coupled with relevant information displayed on the sidebar. Using this add-on, you can easily identify websites using third-party cookies, to track your activity while monitoring a spider-web of data dependencies, which motivates you to further pursue your online interests.
Once this useful add-on is installed, it appears at the top right corner of the add-on bar fixed at the bottom of your browser window. As an observation, if users were provided with the option to add the icon to the navigation toolbar, space could be saved from the main activity area. As you begin browsing, Collusion automatically notes your activity in the background and upon clicking shows the entire context concealed from the common eye.
The spider-web can be interpreted by keeping some useful points. Each circle, represents a website with the arrow pointing to dependency. The arrow points from the informant website to the tracking site. Glowing circles represent visited websites, while icon-less circles represent third-party tracking websites. Clicking an icon highlights the relevant chain and shows the corresponding details regarding the informed websites. Moreover, you can easily identify the information send/receive path from this panel.
Another useful feature is the support for exporting and resetting the graph for clearer analysis, which can be accessed through the about tab on the left sidebar. The user interface can also be hidden as per requirement.
The user-friendly interface allows you to view the strength of a website with respect to dependency by simply clicking and dragging a chosen circle (website) across the screen. This move lets you visualize the impact on the entire web in an animated fashion.
All in all, Collusion is a unique Firefox add-on that is bound to interest both basic and advanced users of the internet. Webbed pages can easily be accessed by clicking the links to yield new tabs. It’s time to get aware of the awareness ripples you create throughout the internet. You can install the add-on by hitting up the link below.